Everything Mestizo
(Mestizo is a mixture or even clashing of cultures/realities forging something totally new)
"...whoever is in Christ is a new creation." 2 Cor. 5:17

Friday, May 27, 2005

CHICANOS/MEXICANOS AND THE LACK OF OPTIONS

According to the September 2002 Interim Report of the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, ethnic Mexicans in the United States fall below every other Latino group "on almost every social and economic indicator." First-generation Mexican immigrants, who make up 54% of all legal Latin American immigrants, have significantly reduced life chances than their U.S. born Mexican American counterparts. High-school drop out rates of around 30% for U.S. born Mexican Americans are bad enough, but the rate more than doubles to 61% for new immigrants.

Although Mexican Americans do better in the field of education than their recently arrived counterparts, when their educational achievement is compared to every other Latino subgroup they lag behind. Among all Latinos over the age of 25, for example, only 10.8% of ethnic Mexicans hold a Bachelor degree or higher compared to 13.9% for Puerto Ricans and 18.1% for Cuban Americans (2002 Interim Report).Although Latinos have a high rate of participation in the labor force, over 11% of Latino workers live in poverty. About 7% of Latinos with full-time jobs were still living below the poverty line in 2001 (compared to 4.4% of African Americans and 1.7% for whites). Among all private sector employees in the U.S., 41.5% are considered blue collar, but 63.5% of all Latinos hold blue collar jobs (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 1998). In 2002, 61% of all workers in agricultural production were Latinos, the vast majority of Mexican descent. While nearly 11% of non-Hispanic whites earn more than $75,000 a year, only 2% of all Latinos earn as much. Among all high school graduates who attend graduate and professional programs, Latinos make up only 1.9% (compared to 3% Black, 3.8% Whites, and 8.8% Asian).

One could elaborate further this bleak picture of what the future holds for Latino communities. The paucity of good union jobs and the decline in public funding for cultural workers only adds to the sense of diminished opportunities. Is it any wonder, in the face of these daunting material conditions, that young Latino and Latina faces are filling the lowest ranks of the military in the lowest-tech occupations? As they do so, the pipeline of Latino and Latina teachers, doctors, and other professionals continues to dry up, a fact that will have devastating consequences for our communities for decades to come.